


Prayer

by TheColorBlue



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Gen, depictions of violence appropriate to the game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 06:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Booker prays, and regrets.<br/>Or, regarding the events leading up to the loss of Anna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prayer

Some nights, Booker thinks back on what he has done, and he finds he can not move, _he can not move_ from _shame_ and _horror_ and _utter self-loathing._

Some say that when a man has his first child, he will see the face of that babe in all children.

After Anna is born, Booker thinks of the women and children, the Indians he burned alive, when he was a part of the 7th Calvary. He can still smell the charred flesh, and thinks of how, in secrecy, he went into the brush and retched afterwards.

Anna is born, and her mother, his wife, dies.

Some nights, he wonders if he should pray for her--this girl with a monster for a father.

Most nights, instead, he leaves her in the care of her underpaid, colored nanny, and he goes out and he drinks. And he gambles. Some nights, he beats men within an inch of their lives, and that is not counting the ones he has been paid to deal roughly with, as a Pinkerton Agent.

One night, a man in a beautiful suit knocks carefully on Dewitt's door. He looks like the sort who is lucky he has not been assaulted and robbed, just coming up the stairs. The man makes an offer on behalf of a patron: "Give us the girl and wipe away your debts." His voice is polished and well-mannered. His words sound almost like a prayer. Booker knows better than to trust anyone offering to buy small children, _particularly_ one's stinking of wealth--but for one, villainous moment, Booker looks away. He pretends. He pretends that wherever this man will take Anna, it will be better than here; anywhere that he could take her--

\--

He regrets the decision almost instantly. The man has already gone down the stairs, but Booker is running. It feels as though his beating heart may burst within the walls of his chest.

"Wait!" he shouts. "You bastard, the deal's off-- _wait_!"

The man does not wait. Booker runs faster.

He finds that, in desperation, he is praying.

His shoes hit the slick stone outside, and he does not slow down.

_God_

he whispers inside

_Oh, God, I beg of you--_

\--

It will be the last time he ever beseeches God's name in prayer.


End file.
